IDEAS FACTORY | How do we revive Australian industry?

Last Friday we saw the end of Ford in Australia, the event highlighted the issue.

Neil Mitchell asks the question, how can we prevent what happened to Ford happening to other industries?

Some ideas are:

Supermarket Isles with only Australian products.

Enterprise zones; if your business is threatened by international competition, you pay less company and payroll tax.

Neil Mitchell spoke with Dave Oliver, secretary of the ACTU who is full of ideas.

‘We’re suggesting that we have what would be known as a buy australian act, it will be modelled on what has been a long standing law in America called the ‘Buy American Act.’ and plenty of other legislation surrounding that.’

‘When it comes to a government expenditure, there should be a requirement that there should be preferential arrangements to provide local content for providing goods and services.’ – he told 3AW Mornings.

Dave says last year in Australia, the Federal government spent $59-billion-dollars on procurement, and argues that part of that should be maximising opportunities for Australian producers.